Friday, February 5, 2010

RA Into + First Paragraph

Human Trafficking is a very serious problem in today’s world. While human trafficking has been going on for a long time, people are just starting to realize how serious this issue is, and how little is being done about it. The article, “Think Again: Human Trafficking,” by David A. Feingold succeeds in clearing up misconceptions about human trafficking and thereby persuading people to take action against this crime. Feingold does by establishing pathos, ethos, and logos

A major element of Feingold’s article is the extensive use of pathos, or emotion appeals. One of the most powerful ways to utilize pathos in an argument and really tug on the heartstrings of the reader is to use examples of the impoverished and the powerless. Feingold does exactly this when he uses specific examples of women and girls being exploited through human trafficking. Feingold states, “Another study by the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) looked at east African girls trafficked to the Middle East and found that most were bound for oppressive domestic work, and often raped and beaten along the way” (192). Nobody wants people to be raped and beaten, but little girls being raped and beaten is a lot more shocking and anger-inducing. Readers will have a very passionate emotional response to hearing that little girls and being raped and beaten as a result of human trafficking, and they will want to do something about it. Feingold’s use of this study is an extremely effective way of calling people to action. Feingold uses women and girls to get an emotional response from the reader again when he states, “In Brazil, for example, girls may be trafficked for sex work from rural to urban areas” (197). Nobody wants little girls to be sexually abused and exploited for sex. The reader may imagine their little sister, maybe the same age as these Brazilian girls being trafficked into the sex trade. They can’t imagine the horrors and atrocities that would happened to their little sisters and they get furious. Once again, using these women and girls as examples of human trafficking is a very successful way of persuading the reader that human trafficking is very serious and wrong.A little later in the article, Feingold again appeals to the emotions of the readers through another statistic. He states, “The ILO estimates the total illicit profits produced by trafficked forced laborers in one year to be just short of $32 billion. Although that is hardly an insignificant amount, it is a small business compared to the more than $320 billion international trade in illicit drugs” (193). This particular statistics is extremely good at making an emotional appeal to the readers. Most readers will know that the drug trade is a very big deal and is incredibly appalling. By using a statistic that compares the profits of human trafficking compared to the profits of the drug trade, Feingold is able to establish the severity of human trafficking in the readers mind. While it is still not as big of a problem as the drug trade, it is still tremendously significant number, and the reader realizes this. The reader understands that human trafficking is not some small issue that will take care of itself; they realize it’s severe, and they need to do something about it before it becomes as bad as the drug trade. This statistic, elicits this emotional response from the reader, and is very effective in calling the reader to action. Feingold again uses pathos to connect the issue of human trafficking on a more domestic basis in the United States. He does this when he says, “U.S. government figures indicate the presence of some 200,000 trafficked victims in the United States” (195). 200,000 people is an astonishing number of human trafficking victims especially here in the United States, and readers will definitely have an emotion reaction to this large number of victims especially on their “home turf” so to speak. When readers realize that this issue also applies to the United States, they will want to do something about it. To go along with the aforementioned quote, Feingold also states, “In fact, between 2001 and 2003, only 110 traffickers were prosecuted by the Justice Department. Of these, 77 were convicted of pled guilty” (195). By comparing the extremely high number of 200,000 trafficking victims to the very small number of 77 traffickers convicted, Feingold is again able to extract an emotional response from the reader as well as proving that persecution will not stop traffickers. Readers will realize that more needs to be done besides prosecution to stop human trafficking.

3 comments:

Great intro - you give a really good brief background on the subject. I would try and make your thesis one sentence instead of two - it would be easier to read. You have really good evidence and do a good job of interpretating his evidence. I would maybe separate the statistics part into a new paragraph.

I would make your thesis more expounded, reword the gist of what his argument is attempting and then say what he uses as a catalyst. The body paragraph is 2-3 paragraphs depending on what you go with as your subjects. While it is all pathos, they are different subjects under the same cloud and need their own paragraph (woman and girls, statistics, etc.) I really liked the extensive quoting of the article, it built credibility in your own.